India’s claim that its fighter pilot shot down a Pakistani F-16 fighter jet in a dogfight in February is wrong, the Foreign Policy, a prestigious American magazine, said in a report quoting US defense officials.
“Two senior US defence officials with direct knowledge of the situation told Foreign Policy that US personnel recently counted Islamabad’s F-16s and found none missing,” the magazine said in a report.
India had claimed that in an aerial duel on February 27, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman had engaged with one of the Pakistani fighter jets that targeted Indian military facilities and shot it down before he was hit and forced to eject.
Varthaman was captured by Pakistan Army and later returned to India amid attempts to de-escalate the crisis between the two sides.
The Indian Air Force had on February 28 displayed pieces of the AMRAAM missile, allegedly fired by a Pakistani F-16, as ‘evidence’. But that, by itself, did not offer any clues on whether Varthaman had shot down a Pakistan Air Force F-16, as had been repeatedly claimed by the government and the IAF.
According to the Foreign Policy magazine, Pakistan invited the United States to physically count its F-16 planes after the incident as part of an end-user agreement signed when the foreign military sale was finalized. “A US count of Pakistan’s F-16 fleet has found that all the jets are present and accounted for, a direct contradiction to India’s claim that it shot down one of the fighter jets during a February clash,” magazine correspondent Lara Seligman reported.
The Foreign Policy reported that Washington generally requires countries it strikes such agreements with to allow US officials to inspect equipment on a regular basis and to ensure that it is accounted for and safe. The official explained that some of the aircraft were not immediately available for inspection after Pak-India back-and-forth, so it took US personnel a few weeks to account for all the jets. When the count was finally conducted, all F-16s employed by the PAF were accounted for, the magazine reported. “The count has been completed and all aircraft are present and accounted for,” an American official was quoted as saying by the magazine.
An associate professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Vipin Narang, told the magazine that although the news is not likely to affect Indian voters, it may affect New Delhi’s dealings with Pakistan in future. “As details come out, it looks worse and worse for the Indians,” Narang said. “It looks increasingly like India failed to impose significant costs on Pakistan, but lost a plane and a helicopter of its own in the process,” he added.
Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, heading into a tight election next week, is campaigning on a platform of tough national security, especially with regard to arch foe Pakistan. New Delhi blames Pakistan for stoking a 30-year fight for freedom in Muslim-majority Kashmir but Islamabad denies any involvement.